rd to find something to
admire in the scenery; and to the south-west we saw the back view of the
flat-topped plateau we had skirted the day before. To the S.S.W. lay
another flat-topped high mountain like the section of a cone which we had
noticed on our previous march.

We were now marching due east, and after some sixteen miles' journey from
our last camp we again entered a hilly portion of country. We made a halt
of three hours, from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., to have our breakfast. Then we
entered the hills by one of the usual dry channels formed by the water
washing down with great force in rainy weather from the hillsides. After
half a mile we emerged again into another plain, three miles long and
about equally wide, with very broken, low rocky mountains to the east,
and low sand hills to the south. To the south-east, in the direction we
were following, stood a massive-looking mountain, which, however,
possessed no very beautiful lines.

More interesting and quaint was the circular crater in a conical mountain
to the north-east of the long dreary plain we were now traversing. The
mouth of this large crater was much lower on the south-west side than on
the north-east, thus exposing to the full view of the traveller the
entire opening in the centre of the mountain, reddish-brown in colour.

Having gone some twelve miles more, we stopped, at four in the afternoon,
in a bitterly penetrating cold wind, which seemed to have a most
uncomfortable effect upon one's nervous system. Whether it was that the
intense dryness caused an excess of electricity, or what, I do not know,
but one ached all over in a frightful manner, and experienced the same
tendon-contracting feeling as when exposed to an electric current.

One farsakh before reaching camp we had passed the camping ground of
Angiloh, where a tiny drip of fresh water exists. We happily found here a
quantity of wood, abandoned by the Clemenson caravan, which we put on
our camels and carried further down into the plain, where, having found
a depression in the ground affording some shelter from the fearful wind,
we halted to wait until the moon rose.

My fever seized me violently on that night, and I experienced intense
pain in my spine, my legs and arms, more especially in places where I had
received wounds on previous journeys.

We left again in the middle of the night at 3 a.m., and a great effort it
was, too, to get out of one's warm blankets and scramble on the camel,